A promise kept

It was clear there wouldn't be a New Years phone call on the 50th year of their pact.

Hollingsworth was terminally ill and asked his battle buddy to deliver the eulogy at his funeral.

Cox in uniform before Hollingworth's funeral.

"After I left his house, I broke down," Cox recalled. "Not about what he asked me to do, but that he was going to be checking out of life, and I was going to be a part of his departure. But I was obligated."

A final farewell

In October, Cox fulfilled that final promise. He gave Hollingsworth's eulogy and then stood vigil beside the coffin.

Cox stands guard at Hollingsworth's casket.

"I wanted to be with him as long as I could," he said. "If it had been me, he would have been standing there."

The Marine Corps motto is "Semper Fidelis," Latin for "always faithful," and those words resounded as Cox stood by Hollingsworth one last time.

He ended the eulogy with a phrase the two used to repeat: "Hollie, you keep 'em flying, and I'll keep 'em firing."